Copyright, 1897
By M. E. M. DAVIS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
26.5

The Athenæum Press
GINN & COMPANY · PROPRIETORS · BOSTON · U.S.A.

TO THE MEMORY
OF
E. H. Cushing

PREFACE.

In the following pages I have endeavored to sketch, inrather bold outlines, the story of Texas. It is a story ofknightly romance which calls the poet even as, in earlier days,the Land of the Tehas called across its borders the dreamersof dreams.

But the history of Texas is far more than a romantic legend.It is a record of bold conceptions and bolder deeds; the storyof the discoverer penetrating unknown wildernesses; of thepioneer matching his strength against the savage; of the coloniststruggling for his freedom and his rights.

It is the chronicle of the birth of a people; the history ofthe rise and progress of a great State.

I have tried in these simple readings so to arrange thesalient points of a drama of two centuries as to present aconsistent whole.

And I shall be happy if I shall succeed in awakening in thereader somewhat of the interest in Texas history which hasinspired this work.

There are several features which mark Texas history asunique. One of these is the difference between the methodsof colonization employed in Texas and those exercised elsewherein the United States.

The pioneer with his cabin, his ever-spreading fields, hisgardens and orchards—the idea of the home with its roots inthe very soil, as represented by Austin and his followers—waspreceded by a hundred barren years of fortress and soldier,the Spanish idea of conquest and military rule.

Again, its vast extent of territory and the ease with whichits rich lands were acquired seemed to adapt Texas peculiarlyto those communistic and utopian experiments which havebeen the delight of the visionary in every age of the world’sprogress. A number of these have been tried upon its soil.The result has been to give a varied and original coloring tothe shifting scenes.

The philosophical student will find these phases of our historywell worth his consideration.

I desire in this place to express my thanks to the Texasteachers, to many of whom I am indebted for timely suggestionsand for kindly encouragement; also my grateful obligationto Mr. William Beer, of the New Orleans Howard MemorialLibrary, for valuable assistance; and to the Library itself,which, under his able direction, has become particularly richin documents and publications relating to the early historyof Louisiana and Texas.M. E. M.

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